Tag Archives: Pelosi

Peer pressure is a powerful tool employed to influence and control the behavior of others. It used to be the case that it was truly only effective amongst children, those not yet strong enough in character and resolve to resist the condemnation of others. In recent times, however, in our culture of political correctness, adults and corporations can regularly be seen caving to the demands of their peers for conformance.

Celebrity and activist Kim Kardashian West faced just such peer pressure last week when she announced her plans to visit the White House and celebrate the “First Step Act” with its key designers President Trump, his daughter Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner. Instead of conforming to prevailing Hollywood winds and avoiding the president, Kim, who has made criminal justice equality and prison reform her flag-in-soil issues, made the trip and made strong statements in support of the new program.

It was roughly a year ago that TMZ broke the story that Jay-Z had pressured fellow rapper Meek Mill, an outspoken supporter of criminal justice reform, to cancel a planned visit to Washington to participate in a conference the president had called to discuss the issue. Mill was given a chance to turn words into action and get involved in actually solving a problem. Peer pressure caused him to back away.

In praising the president’s freshly enacted legislation which gives an opportunity to people who have served their time for their criminal infraction, Kardashian committed Hollywood heresy by saying, “It is really such an honor to be here today,” and by calling the president’s new program “magic.”

Kardashian also went further when she likely infuriated late-night show hosts by using social media to praise Ivanka Trump:

“Thank you @IvankaTrump for helping me to start this amazing journey of fighting for people who truly deserve a second chance!”

Ivanka and Jared have been the subject of so much Hollywood hatred that you know Kim risked some serious Los Angeles heat by making such a positive public statement.

Courage is considered one of the four Cardinal Virtues of Western Civilization. It, along with wisdom, moderation, and justice, was identified going back to Plato as being essential to the ideal person. Aristotle said that courage was the mean between rashness and cowardice and pointed out that a person cannot live a good life if they went around being afraid all the time.

Politicians, not just celebrities, have been bowing to the fear created by peer pressure. During President Trump’s exploration of the prison reform issue, many Democratic politicians who harped on the need for such reform for years refused to participate because of the president’s involvement. They feared reprisal for standing alongside President Trump.

Where is the bellicose House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in all of this? Why isn’t the lady who has spoken out so often of injustice in the federal prison system not standing right next to the president talking about what is likely going to be the only piece of meaningful legislation passed prior to the 2020 election? She’s hiding. She’s afraid.

There can be no question that Pelosi supports the measure, indeed, she issued a terse, but positive statement back in December when the House passed the bill. But, stand next to the president and work together on Second Step legislation? Not happening.

The Speaker lacks courage. Like so many other politicians, celebrities, and everyday Americans she finds it easier to pander than she does to make a difficult stand, face criticism, and do what is right. She is a follower cast in the role of a leader.

This lack of courage is not some sort of liberal disease to which conservatives find themselves immune. In going to the White House and standing next to the president, Kim showed more courage than many Republicans have over the past three years. From Paul Ryan to Justin Amash, too many Republicans have been unwilling publicly to show support for the president, even though in the privacy of a smoke-filled room while gripping a cognac they whisper that they agree with what he is doing.

Courage hasn’t completely disappeared from the American political landscape. Activist Van Jones was a strong public advocate of the First Step Act despite his political and general lack of agreement with the president. It takes courage and strength to enter discussion and forge agreements with people whom you might otherwise find disagreeable. Cicero knew this 2,000 years ago. Nothing has changed.

Kim Kardashian West shows courage; Nancy Pelosi does not. Adam Levine shows courage playing at the Super Bowl; numerous other performers do not. Until American adult influencers and political leaders learn how to withstand peer pressure, our liberty is at stake. Why can’t adults resist the very thing they all teach their children to resist?

You wouldn’t know it from the way she’s being covered in most of the Washington media but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a woman with a lot of problems. Instead of in-depth coverage of the ideological divisions in her caucus and the political challenges to her leadership, she gets stuff like this, from Politico:

“Using strategies she’s honed over decades, the speaker has managed to keep a sprawling freshman class in line — and on her side — despite breaking with them on issues ranging from impeachment to the ‘Green New Deal.’”

What Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan wouldn’t have done for that kind of coverage when they were in charge! When they were in charge, the dissenters drove the narrative. Now that the Queen Bee of Capitol Hill is back in charge, things have turned on their head.

The reason for this is simple according to Rich Galen, a former top communications aide to House Speaker Newt Gingrich and a well-respected commentator.

“The advantage – the GREAT advantage – that Pelosi has, which Newt nor any following GOP Speaker has had is the adoration of the national press corps. They REALLY want her to succeed. Nevertheless, Pelosi has some of the same issues to deal with that Newt did: Mainly a huge freshman class that think they invented Democracy,” Galen says.

He doesn’t think she’s lost control of her conference – not yet anyway – but the she’s not breaking records for party unity. She’s already lost the vote on two motions to recommit – a parliamentary device often used to slow the progress of legislation through the House – and continues to show signs of fatigue, something that has some speculating quietly and anonymously that the job may be too much for her.

That’s a reach. Even at 78 Pelosi still shows she has command of the political skills learned at her father’s knee – he was once mayor of Baltimore, Maryland – and from various members of the Burton family whose accomplishments in California Democratic politics are still considered legendary.

Still, Pelosi did herself no favors when late last week she suggested impeachment of President Donald Trump might be off the table. By suggesting it wasn’t worth the effort she gave the proverbial “finger” to Democratic donors and activists from coast to coast who worked so hard in 2018 to win back control of the U.S. House for the Democrats precisely for the purpose of driving Trump from office.

Some may say that it’s not such a big deal. The activist wing of the party is likely harder to mollify, even as Pelosi and others work to keep them in line. Consider what the reaction would have been among the GOP faithful if, after using the repeal of Obamacare as the whip hand to drive voters to the polls in 2010 to win back control of the House for John Boehner and the Republicans, the measure was never even brought to the floor for a vote.

“Impeaching Trump is probably the one substantive matter that is non-negotiable for House Democrats,” says Mike Franc, a former GOP congressional leadership staffer and now head of the Washington office of the Hoover Institution.

“Pelosi can get away with dismissing the New Green Deal (because it is purely aspirational and agenda-setting rather than substantive) but not this. My guess is that she suffers for this sin, mostly with the Democratic base.”

For Pelosi, now and moving forward, the tail is wagging the dog. She may be the political leader and the nation’s most important elected Democrat, but she has little to say, at least so far, about what the party’s agenda will be. She faces, Franc says, “a substantive revolution” in the way policy is made on Capitol Hill, akin to what happened after the Democratic landslide of 1974 and the 1994 Republican Contract with America.

The large class of Democratic freshmen, which includes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes and her fellow traveling socialists, do not seem, Franc says, committed to a set of real and substantive policy changes so much as they are interested in “using their platforms as Members to advance a new and socialistic state of mind in traditional and social media.”

If that gives AOC and others control of the agenda, what does that mean for the suburban seats Democrats took from the GOP in 2018 because voters either thought the Republican agenda was too extreme or because they wanted to send a message to Trump?

Extremism on the left, which is what AOC and her fellow Green New Dealers are offering, is no better in these districts than extremism on the right. These moderate members could get lost in the undertow if Pelosi can’t stop the drift to the left, but she can’t stay in power if she does.

Nancy Pelosi has a lot of problems – and they’re just beginning to surface.

Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has yet to take the speaker’s gavel of the U.S. House of Representatives, but Democrats are already laboring to make it easier to dismantle the achievements of the Trump presidency.

The incoming chairman of the House Rules Committee, Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.), confirmed to colleagues on Wednesday that he would not honor the three-fifths supermajority requirement to raise income taxes, as reported by the Washington Post.

McGovern’s decision overturns a rule implemented under outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) that mandated a three-fifths majority approve any proposed hike to the income tax.

The change comes after a standoff between Pelosi and her moderate allies in the Democratic conference, such as incoming Ways and Means Committee chairman Richard Neal (Mass.), and younger, more progressive members like Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.). Continue reading →

Scott McGrew, an anchor and reporter for NBC’s San Francisco affiliate, on Wednesday said President Donald Trump is “far more liked” by Americans than House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.).

McGrew reported on Pelosi’s announcement Tuesday about her plans to run for House Speaker if the Democrats regain the majority in the House of Representatives after the midterm elections this fall.

“This may not be good news for Democrats. Republicans use Pelosi as a cudgel in their ads to convince people not to vote for Democrats, and they’re not wrong [to do so],” McGrew said. “We might like Continue reading →

So, Pelosi’s Own Father Once Dedicated a Statue to Robert E. Lee
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi woke up from her 30-year slumber last week and suddenly decided to be outraged by the Confederate statues standing in the halls of Congress. She finds them “reprehensible” and is demanding House Speaker Paul Ryan have them removed.

Her family tree history makes her outrage a bit awkward. Red Alert Politics dug up a bit of history to find that Pelosi’s own father, Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., dedicated a statue to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee when he was the mayor of Baltimore. Continue reading →

Even Nancy Pelosi isn’t pressuring House Democrats to fall in lock-step with her precious Barack.

According to this, Democrats from the House of Representatives met with the Department of Homeland Security to discuss how DHS was planning to screen Syrian refugees who are coming into the United States. This was in preparation for a vote over a bill introduced in the House that would limit the number of refugees the U.S. takes in and even possibly pause the refugee program for a time. To make a long story short, it didn’t go so well – Continue reading →

The report by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding CIA interrogation essentially accuses the agency under George W. Bush of war criminality. Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein appears to offer some extenuation when she reminds us in the report’s preamble of the shock and “pervasive fear” felt after 9/11.

One of the most well-known lines from presidential addresses was written for John F. Kennedy by Ted Sorenson. Kennedy was not the first president to use a speech writer. Presidents have been using speech writers since the beginning. Alexander Hamilton wrote the first draft of George Washington’s Farewell Address. Washington worked with Hamilton till it said just want he wanted. This is the standard and accepted procedure. Not all Presidents have written as elegantly or effectively as Lincoln. Continue reading →

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